The approach
Diagnosis before repetition.
Four steps, always in this order. It is how an experiment is run: establish a baseline, isolate the cause, intervene, then measure against the baseline.
The method
Assess, diagnose, rebuild, measure.
1
Assess
The student works through a real official past paper while I watch how they think. The result is a baseline on the exam’s own scale.
2
Diagnose
Conceptual, technical and exam-performance problems are separated: which command term costs marks, where the method mark is earned and the accuracy mark lost.
3
Rebuild
We work on the areas with the greatest impact on the grade, around real past papers and the official markscheme.
4
Measure
Timed papers under exam conditions, compared with the baseline. Progress is measured, not assumed.
Parents are kept informed without having to ask. After each lesson a few lines appear in the family area: what was covered, what went wrong, what comes next. Nothing to reply to.
The family area
What parents see, every week.
Each family has a private area with its own access for parents. Nothing to ask for and nothing to reply to: the write-up is there the same evening, the whiteboard is saved page by page, and the PDFs are ready to revise from.
Pietro Meloni PHD
LessonsLesson · 28 July 2026 · 60 minutes
Derivatives and definite integrals
- Focus
- Excellent
- Understanding
- Strong
- Execution
- Developing
Documents of the day
- ReportPDF
- TheoryPDF
- ExercisesPDF
- SolutionsPDF
Tutor’s note
Kevin worked with good discipline for the whole hour. The strongest part was his intuition for what a derivative and an integral represent: he now reads the sign of the derivative off the shape of the curve instead of recomputing it. The area to keep working on is rigour when signs and constants are involved.
Common mistake
Applying the chain rule but forgetting to multiply by the derivative of the inner function.
Every lesson, written up the same day
Ratings for focus, understanding and execution, my note on how the hour went, and the four documents of the day: report, theory, exercises and solutions.
Pietro Meloni PHD
ProgressProgress · February to July 2026
- 18
- lessons
- 19
- hours
- 60
- topics
IB grade, mock by mock
Each point is a full paper sat in exam conditions and marked against the IB markscheme. Predicted grade at the start: 4. Target: 7.
Topics covered
- Calculus
- 14 of 16 topics
- Functions
- 9 of 9
- Trigonometry
- 7 of 7
- Vectors
- 4 of 8
Progress you can look at
The IB grade on every mock paper, from the predicted grade at the start to the target, plus hours taught and every topic covered. "He is doing better" becomes something a parent can check before deciding where the next hour goes.
The data shown is invented. Real families and real names never appear on this site.
In practice
What a diagnosis looks like.
Typical pattern · not a real student
Observed
“The physics is right when we talk it through. On paper, three-mark questions come back with one.”
Diagnosis
Not a knowledge problem. “Explain” is answered as “state”: the conclusion is written, the chain of reasoning the markscheme rewards is not.
Intervention
Command terms trained one by one on official questions, each answer marked against the real markscheme line by line.
Three typical patterns, shown as illustrations. They are not real students.
Four situations
Do you recognise your child?
Works hard, but the grade doesn’t move.
- What is usually happening
- The hours go into what already works. The same two or three weaknesses cost marks in every test, and nobody has named them.
- What changes
- A baseline on a real paper shows where the marks actually go. The work narrows to those areas, and the next timed paper shows whether it worked.
Understands in class, loses it in the exam.
- What is usually happening
- Understanding is there; exam performance is a separate skill. Command terms, the structure of an answer and time per question were never trained.
- What changes
- Practice on official papers, marked the way examiners mark, until the markscheme stops being a surprise.
Has lost confidence in the subject.
- What is usually happening
- A run of poor results has turned into anxiety, and anxiety now costs more marks than the physics does.
- What changes
- Small, verifiable wins on real questions, in a setting where a mistake is information. Confidence follows evidence.
Already strong, aiming for a 7 at HL.
- What is usually happening
- The last grade boundary is decided by the hardest questions, the data-based questions of Paper 1B and the Internal Assessment, not by more of the same.
- What changes
- Work at the top of the markscheme, an ambitious IA, and questions beyond the syllabus for students heading to STEM degrees at selective universities.
Students who learn differently
Some students learn differently. With attention difficulties, ADHD or exam anxiety, the pace adapts to the student, mistakes are treated as part of the work, and confidence is built through small wins and progressive challenges.
Foundations
What the work is built on.
Official IB past papers
The last ten years
Internal Assessment in Physics
20% of the final grade
Extended Essay in Physics
4,000 words of independent research
A private family area
For each family
Before the Diploma
IGCSE & MYP Mathematics and Physics
Foundation and transition to the IB Diploma
Most difficulties in the Diploma start earlier. For students in the two years before it, the same method applies, with one more aim: arriving at the IB with the algebra, the mechanics and the exam habits already in place.
- Cambridge IGCSE Mathematics (0580), Core and Extended
- Cambridge IGCSE International Mathematics (0607)
- Cambridge IGCSE Additional Mathematics (0606)
- Cambridge IGCSE Physics (0625)
- Edexcel International GCSE Mathematics and Physics
- IB MYP Mathematics and Sciences, years 4 and 5
Initial assessment